The Words I Never Said
by Saoirse7
Summary: "As I drown in my regrets, I can't take back the words I never said..." She stares numbly at the cold stones in front of her, wishing she could have done things differently. Partially inspired by "Words" by Skylar Grey.


**Disclaimer: Anyone or anything you recognize does not belong to me. All belongs to C.S. Lewis.**

She stared at the three stones in front of her. Not thinking, not feeling, just staring. She came here often, enough that those who took care of the grounds knew her name, her face. Her story. She heard the whispers as she walked past, saw the sympathetic faces, the little shake of their heads. _That's the Pevensie girl. Such a tragedy: her whole family in one sweep. Sobered her up, though; my Danny hasn't seen her with a cloud of young men around her since the crash._ They didn't think she heard; she did. But she pulled the shreds of her dignity around her and kept moving, her head erect. Wishing that there was some semblance of Gentle Queen still left in her, but knowing it was buried, right alongside Magnificent, Just, and Valiant. With their death went hers.

There was a fourth stone, too, a double headstone, but it was not in the same area. For a second she wondered why, since these three were here and the fourth one was there, but then she took a moment to think about it and remembered that the fourth one had been put where it was for a reason; its location had been chosen by those who would forever rest under it.

These three had not been plotted, had not been planned for.

Bitterly, she remembered those agonizing days following the horrific news: a flurry of funeral plans and costs and preparations. Everything dropped in her lap for her to decide. Then there were the crowds of well-wishers and people who came for the food, patted her on the arm, and went home. Back to their normal lives surrounded by the ones they loved. And she remained to trudge through the mess alone. How she wished she could have had someone to share the pain with!

But there was no one left.

Each time she came, she brought something. Some days it was merely a bouquet of flowers to adorn each stone; other days it was something of theirs, to remember them as she sat silent by their final resting place.

Today it was the letters.

With trembling fingers, she opened each envelope, moved her eyes over every lovingly penned word. The words that she had already read so often she could practically recite them.

They missed her. Almost every letter contained that, no matter who it was by. And now, after the fact, each page cut straight to her heart. _I don't miss the Susan I saw last Christmas_, her eldest brother wrote. _I miss the Susan that used to be_. Well, there was nothing of her left. Years of covering up her true emotions had made sure of that. Time after time of pushing away the memories of the Lion and the land from which she had been banned.

The land that she still, deep down inside, wanted to consider her true home.

All that remained now were the regrets. The what-ifs. The wishes. She wished she had not stuffed the memories so deep they were near inaccessible, wished she had not turned away from the Lion's warmth and love. _You and I were so close once upon a time_, her sister scribbled. _We talked about everything. What happened? Please write back_. Lucy, so full of joy and dripping with the Lion's Presence, never understood why she pulled back, pulled away from them all.

She never had written back.

Out of habit, her eyes flicked to the date at the top of the page, though she knew it by heart.

3 September, 1949. Two days before the crash.

And now there was no chance to ever tell her bright, vivacious sister anything ever again.

The grief overwhelmed her for a moment, and she drew her knees up and wrapped her arms around them, rocking back and forth. She willed herself to cry, but still no tears would fall, and again she was left with the dull emptiness that had characterized everything she did these past months.

It was several minutes before she was able to continue reading, when she reached for one that was not the strong, block letters of her eldest brother nor the flowing, round script of her sister. No, the one she reached for was marked by the thin, spidery scrawl of her little brother, the most infrequent writer of the three, since he only wrote what he most wanted to say.

He was the one who tried to understand her. _Come back to the Lion_, he implored. _I know what it's like to be away from Him, and it's not a life you want. Trust me_. How could she explain that He was too far away for her to ever reach again? She had never had Lucy's faith, Peter's strength, Edmund's loyalty.

Letter after letter. Laughing, worrying, pleading. She could see the progression as the pages were dated more recently, could almost mark the major events in her life by what her siblings had to say about it. Not that she had told them. Most of their information came from Mother and Father. In fact, the majority of these letters were left without a response, if opened at all. There was only so much preaching a person could handle, or so she had thought at the time.

The first thing she had done after the crash was go home and read them, the last words she would ever have from any of the ones she cared about more than life itself.

Shame it took the tragedy for her to realize that.

All the things she would have—should have—done differently haunted her, and the pieces of paper that lay on her bedside table were a constant reminder of missed opportunities. The words she should have said.

With a shuddering sigh that spoke more than any of her words ever could, she noted the darkening sky and gathered the scattered pages in front of her, tucking them with especial care into her satchel. Then, rising, she turned and headed for the empty structure that was all the home she had left.


End file.
